Mandel NGAN / FILESMANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty ImagesFormer U.S. President George H.W. Bush: He started it.

There was a time in Canada, and not that long ago, when you couldn’t breathe the words “tax hike” without getting an ugly look from the body politic. It was just too fearsome a concept. Starting in the early 1990s, when the first George Bush vowed “no new taxes,” then broke his word and got turfed from the White House by Bill Clinton, politicians across the continent have been too worried about their own survival to risk openly advocating taxes. The fear infested Canadian politicians as much as American: when Paul Martin finally moved to slay the federal deficit he did so with spending cuts rather than new taxes. When Stephane Dion defied convention by advocating sweeping environmental charges, he lost the campaign and his job. Rob Ford was elected Toronto mayor almost solely on his promise not to spend money. (He didn’t mention the drugs and alcohol thing).

Politicians recognize there is safety in numbers, and the more jurisdictions that embrace tax hikes, the safer it becomes

It’s an era that appears to be at an end. The fear is gone. If you need evidence of that, just consider the case of Alberta, for decades Canada’s least taxed, and most anti-tax, jurisdiction. Successive Alberta premiers opted for almost any alternative to tax hikes to fund their spending binges: debt, deficits, innovative accounting tricks, raids on contingency funds, draining the Heritage Trust fund. Premier Jim Prentice swore off corporate hikes or the adoption of a sales tax when he began looking for ways to fill the $7 billion gap caused by collapsing oil prices. But in the end he threw up his hands and turned to taxpayers for “new revenue”: higher income taxes, higher sin taxes, higher user fees, a new health tax – you name it, he raised it. By 2016 the average family will fork over more than $500 a year extra. “We are asking people who can pay a little more to pay a little more,” said Finance Minister Robin Campbell. Which is to say: everyone.

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason FransonAlberta Premier Jim Prentice: if he can raise taxes, everyone can.

You can bet the other premiers were paying attention. If Alberta can hike taxes, anyone can. A Bank of Montreal analysis calculated that provincial assessments will snatch back 75% of $4.5 billion in tax breaks promised by Ottawa. Ontario, which carries by far Canada’s biggest deficit at $12.5 billion a year – more than the rest of the country combined – will be particularly watchful.

Ontario’s Liberals have raised taxes regularly since gaining power in 2003, but have always scrupulously denied doing so. Admitting the truth, even in chronically apathetic Ontario, would have been too dangerous. But the alternative — getting a control on spending — has proved beyond their ability. Every spending measure has ballooned: spending has doubled, the debt has doubled, the deficit at one point had tripled. Moody’s Investment Services noted recently that the debt has worsened every year since 2009, a period during which the government was most fervently vowing to bring it under control. Since 2005-06 compensation costs for government employees have risen at triple the rate of inflation..

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Don’t think Premier Kathleen Wynne isn’t eager to turn to taxes. The Liberals have twice pushed up charges on “high-income” earners in recent years, though setting different bars for what constitutes “high income”. With more than 111,000 Ontarians now on the annual Sunshine List – the tally of public employees earning more than $100,000 a year – and growing at almost 14% a year, almost anyone from everyday cops to TTC ticket-takers can now be targeted as “high income.” Ms. Wynne has yet to produce a convincing alternative plan to eliminate the deficit, counting instead on one-time asset sales, economic growth spurred by the weak dollar and some marginal restraint on union wages to make it magically go away.

Matthew Sherwood for National PostToronto police are a "high-income" group, just like bankers and hospital bosses.

The return of tax increases can be blamed on the failure of governments to control their spending urges. Since George H.W. Bush made his “no new tax” pledge, the U.S. has added $15 trillion to its debt because it couldn’t match tax cuts with spending cuts. The biggest increase, 101%, belongs to Bush’s son, George W., who introduced a big drug plan and two wars he couldn’t pay for. On Monday the Wall Street Journal reported the Republican-controlled Senate Finance Committee is giving serious thought to a consumption tax in a desperate bid to bring order to the chaotic and counter-productive U.S. tax system. The levy they’re looking at is similar to the GST introduced in Canada by Brian Mulroney almost 25 years ago. Sen. Ben Cardin told the Journal the idea “is getting a great deal more respect, and it is in the discussions”.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is the biggest-spending prime minister in Canadian history. Only since gaining a majority has he sought to curb costs, by slicing the size of the civil service back to the level it was when he took office. Federal Liberal leader Justin Trudeau says the provinces should be responsible for carbon pricing, but has left little doubt he would look favourably on a carbon tax. Mr. Prentice told Albertans the province spends $1,300 more per person than any other province. Quebec’s last balanced budget was seven years ago; between 2003-4 and 2013-14, public spending grew by 67%, and revenue by 66% while the economy grew just 40% according to the Montreal Economic Institute.

Politicians recognize there is safety in numbers, and the more jurisdictions that embrace tax hikes, the safer it becomes for the rest. It’s likely that few anticipated it would be Alberta that opened the gates, but now they’re open it will that much easier for the rest to push their way through. If a 43-year-old Tory monopoly can’t find any other way to pay its bills, who can expects others to do so?

There’s a distinct whiff of majority-government hubris in the air at the Ontario legislature. The province’s Liberal government recently reintroduced a bill that would crack down on “strategic lawsuits against public participation,” or SLAPPs — a praiseworthy measure designed to protect freedom of expression in matters of public interest. The idea is that individuals should not be bullied into silence by the threat of a lengthy or expensive lawsuit. So far, so good.

But here’s the catch: When the Liberals reintroduced the bill, which died on the order paper when last year’s spring election was called, they removed a clause that would have made the bill applicable to both new and existing cases. Sean Craig, a reporter for the Canadaland website/podcast, noted the change is of particular convenience to Premier Kathleen Wynne, who is in the midst of a $2-million libel suit against former Ontario Progressive Conservative leader Tim Hudak and MPP Lisa MacLeod — exactly the sort of shut-your-mouth lawfare the bill was intended to prevent.

During the spring election campaign, Mr. Hudak and Ms. MacLeod had suggested, without evidence, that Ms. Wynne oversaw and possibly ordered the destruction of emails during the gas plant scandal. This is the kind of incendiary allegation parties routinely lob at one another during campaigns, even if this one was a little offside. But instead of responding in kind, Ms. Wynne sued.

Ms. Wynne’s people insist the removal of the retroactive clause in the bill had nothing to do with her lawsuit. Rather, the bill was amended out of a concern for fairness for those who are currently in the midst of legal proceedings (and who are not the premier of the province), as well as a desire to avoid creating a “distraction from the important public interest purpose of the legislation” — although why that would matter is unclear, since there is zero risk of the bill not passing. It is supported by all parties in the legislature, and in any case the Liberals have a majority.

All of this legal nastiness would just go away, Ms. Wynne said Monday, if Mr. Hudak and Ms. MacLeod would just say they were sorry. Blackmail is an ugly word — say, rather, that the premier offered them a choice: apologize for a campaign remark that had no evident impact on her reputation or political fortunes, or face a $2-million lawsuit. The premier, to her credit, refrained from placing her thumbs to her temples and wiggling her fingers at the losing team. But that same restraint didn’t seem to be in play when Liberals tinkered with legislation to the premier’s obvious political gain. What’s the fun of a majority if you don’t use it, after all?

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/national-post-view-tinkering-with-legislation-to-kathleen-wynnes-obvious-political-gain/feed/0stdKathleen WynneOntario Premier Kathleen Wynne promises to drop lawsuit against PC members … all they have to do is apologizehttp://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/canadian-politics/ontario-premier-kathleen-wynne-promises-to-drop-lawsuit-against-pc-members-all-they-have-to-do-is-apologize
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/canadian-politics/ontario-premier-kathleen-wynne-promises-to-drop-lawsuit-against-pc-members-all-they-have-to-do-is-apologize#commentsMon, 30 Mar 2015 16:05:28 +0000http://news.nationalpost.com/?p=730488

TORONTO — Premier Kathleen Wynne says if the Progressive Conservatives want her to drop a lawsuit against two of their members, all they have to do is apologize.

Wynne launched a suit last April against then PC leader Tim Hudak and MPP Lisa MacLeod for saying she oversaw and possibly ordered the destruction of documents on cancelled gas plants.

MacLeod says Wynne filed the suit to quash legitimate opposition criticism, and accuses the Liberals of killing legislation the very next day that would have allowed her and Hudak to challenge the lawsuit.

Wynne says the bill was changed because courts don’t like retroactive changes to laws, adding she was willing to drop the lawsuit if MacLeod and Hudak retracted their statements and apologized.

The premier says she filed the suit because the Tory accusations, which she calls completely untrue, were made on the eve of last year’s election, which saw the Liberals easily defeat the Conservatives to win a fourth term in office.

MacLeod says it looks like Wynne killed her own bill to block strategic lawsuits against public participation for her own political gain, and accuses the premier of acting above the law.

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Ontario has released it’s annual report of public sector employees earning more than $100,000, and this year more than 100,000 workers made the Sunshine List.

The list, which includes nurses, teachers, police and firefighters, in addition to civil servants, increased by more than 13,600 workers over 2013. A total of 111,438 public sector workers in Ontario were paid more than $100,000 in 2014.

It appears Ontario Power Generation CEO Tom Mitchell topped the list again with $1.55 million in salary and benefits.

There are about 12,500 employees from OPG, Hydro One and their subsidiaries on the 2014 list, up by nearly 1,000 over 2013, when the auditor general warned those salaries were driving up electricity rates.

Premier Kathleen Wynne was paid just over $209,00 last year, up about $10,000 from 2013.

There have been calls to raise the $100,000 threshold, which was first set when the sunshine list was created in 1996, but the opposition parties say that’s still a lot of money for most Ontarians.

If indexed to inflation, the income threshold for the sunshine list would be about $145,000.

The figures contained in the latest Fraser Institute report on the Ontario government’s spending are nothing short of shocking.

Despite repeat protestations that the government is dedicated to getting its books in order, spending on the civil service has escalated dramatically. Between 2005-06 and 2013-14, compensation costs, including salary and benefits, grew 47%, compared to inflation of 15% and an 11% increase in the number of government jobs.

According to the report, “compensation spending on provincial government workers is responsible for nearly three-quarters of [new] program spending from 2009/10 to 2013/14.” If not for the greater share of spending going to employees, the province could have shaved almost $15 billion from its mountainous debt. That is a significant consideration: Interest payments are running at almost $11 billion a year, or 85% of the annual deficit.

As the report points out, higher spending does not necessarily translate into more or better services. With compensation rising at four times the rate of job growth, Ontarians are simply paying that much more to the same people. More than half the police officers in Toronto, for example, now make more than $100,000, according to the province’s annual Sunshine List, which tallies the salaries of public employees. The Fraser report adds that payments to doctors grew faster than any other group, up 60% over nine years.

What is particularly galling is that all this splashing out for higher compensation came at a time when the province was enduring an extended period of slow growth, following the international economic meltdown of 2008. The same period coincided with pledges by former premier Dalton McGuinty and his successor, Kathleen Wynne, to balance the budget and get spending under control.

Indeed, in recent years there has been some belated attempts at restraint. Mr. McGuinty endured harsh confrontations with Ontario teachers when he tried to freeze salaries, and Ms. Wynne is now embroiled in talks with those same teachers’ unions, which continue to threaten strikes and classroom disruption should any of their perks be taken away.

But even as salaries have been constrained, other employee costs have increased to eat up the difference. In the five years to 2014, the number of Ontario Public Service employees fell 5.4%, but total compensation spending rose 10%.

The story is clear: Despite their protestations, Ontario’s Liberals have failed miserably to rein in the cost of the civil service. In a province where job security is increasingly a thing of the past, civil servants remain protected, a special category of worker shielded by the insulating arms of the government — at every other worker’s expense.

National Post

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/national-post-view-ontarios-spending-problem-quantified/feed/0stdKathleen WynneBeer and wine in a grocery store near you, and five other possible reforms to Ontario’s liquor distribution systemhttp://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/canadian-politics/beer-and-wine-in-a-grocery-store-near-you-and-five-other-possible-reforms-to-ontarios-liquor-distribution-system
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/canadian-politics/beer-and-wine-in-a-grocery-store-near-you-and-five-other-possible-reforms-to-ontarios-liquor-distribution-system#commentsFri, 13 Mar 2015 13:57:35 +0000http://news.nationalpost.com/?p=718597

Ontarians might soon be able to grab a bottle of wine and a six-pack alongside a dozen eggs if the provincial government follows through with a plan to allow grocers to sell the two on their shelves.

The move is a big step beyond the “LCBO Express” kiosks the Liberal government first promised years ago, only to pull back earlier this year when faced with little interest from big retailers. Instead of separate stores inside larger outlets, the province is now considering allowing the sale of beer and wine in grocery stores, the Toronto’s Star’s Martin Regg Cohn reports.

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It’s the latest in a stream of possible reforms for Ontario’s antiquated and byzantine regulations wrapped around booze sales. The LCBO would retain its monopoly on spirit sales, but the leaked reforms would provide more competition to the oligopolistic Beer Store, which is primarily owned by three big brewers and has increasingly come under public scrutiny. Ontario’s growing craft beer industry feels shut out of that process and grocery store sales would offer much-needed shelf space.

The big brands would also be offered inside up to 200 stores authorized to sell a tipple beside toast points, the Star reports.

Don’t expect bottles of gin to start popping up, however, as spirit sales will remain the purview of the LCBO, which generated $1.74 billion for the public purse last fiscal year. Those needed, long-term revenues prompted Ed Clark, who is leading a panel reviewing Ontario asset sales as the province battles a $12.5-billion deficit, to dismiss selling off the LCBO. That doesn’t mean other reforms are impossible.

So here are a few options the government and legislature are, and aren’t, considering to open up a liquor system that dates back to the end of Prohibition:

Not in corner stores

Premier Kathleen Wynne has been firm about one thing: no liquor sales in corner stores, so don’t expect Quebec-style depanneurs to start popping up in Ontario.

What about adding beer to wine sales in farmers’ markets?

National Post filesYou can already buy local wine at an Ontario farmers' market, so why not a craft beer?

Last year, the province began to license Ontario VQA wineries to offer their vintages at farmers’ market stalls. Adding craft beer to that mix hasn’t been formally discussed, but could be a natural extension and a way to foster a fledgling provincial industry in tough economic times.

Allowing brewers and vintners to sell competitors’ products onsite

This one seems counter-intuitive but it’s not really: if you allowed craft brewers to sell each other’s wares, and limited it to Ontario-made products, then you could essentially allow them to return to the co-op style sales that were the origins of the Beer Store. That means SteamWhistle brewery in Toronto could sell Prince Edward County’s Barley Days Brewery’s ales downtown and vice versa. Vineyards would also be allowed to offer their neighbours’ products, allowing oenophiles to pick up a few different wines on their way through the country.

Wine and craft beer industry groups have long called for any and all options to sell their bottles and brews in more places and form a tight-knit community that recognizes new customers are a boon to the whole industry and not just one outlet. They don’t see it as more competition but more market share.

Todd Smith, MPP for Prince Edward-Hastings, has a private members’ bill on the books that would allow just this. It’s through second reading and currently awaiting committee consideration.

Letting the B.C. wine flow

Courtesy of Rocky MountaineerThe Rocky Mountaineer’s wine route begins in Vancouver and ends in Banff, Alta., with stops in B.C.’s Okanagan Valley, which is home
to more than 130 wineries; many are small boutique operations with names like Dirty Laundry, Laughing Stock and Misconduct.

B.C. Premier Christy Clark brought a few symbolic cases of wine to the Council of the Federation meeting with other premiers in Niagara-on-the-Lake in 2013 and dropped internal trade barriers to importing Ontario vintages to that province. But it’s still hard to find more than a handful of bottles of B.C.’s bounty of wineries in most LCBOs because Wynne has yet to drop Ontario’s barriers. Many Ontario wineries say they already compete against Europe, so why not another province’s vintners too?

Franchise fee for the Beer Store

The Beer Store’s monopoly on sales of cases of 24 beers has given it a fiscal boost, Clark found in his report. If they want to maintain that privileged position, he suggested the province start charging them a franchise fee for the right. The big brewers have already promised legal action should Wynne take that path.

More private wine sales

Brent Lewin / BloombergSixty per cent of Ontarians over the age of 18 support the idea of selling beer and wine in alternative establishments, according to an Angus Reid study commissioned by the Ontario Convenience Store Association last year.

The handful of wine stores in Ontario are actually owned by a few conglomerates that own wineries around the world. They are required to sell Ontario-grown wines, but can also bring in international blends and increasingly are offering wines from their vineyards in other countries.

The Wine Council of Ontario has long called for private wine stores in Ontario not limited to the province’s wines. The logic is the same as all the other increased retail options they champion: even if we’re competing against international giants, we’d rather have more shelf space for Ontario wine.

Why?

Many smaller vineyards don’t produce enough wine to list in all LCBO stores, and while they might get a limited run in local outlets, they say private wine stores would offer them more shelves and more chances to convert oenophiles to Ontario wine.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/canadian-politics/beer-and-wine-in-a-grocery-store-near-you-and-five-other-possible-reforms-to-ontarios-liquor-distribution-system/feed/6stdOntario’s liquor-store monopoly will open kiosks in grocery stores for the first time this year, selling beer, wine and spiritsNational Post filesThe Rocky Mountaineer’s wine route begins in Vancouver and ends in Banff, Alta., with stops in B.C.’s Okanagan Valley, which is home to more than 130 wineries; many are small boutique operations with names like Dirty Laundry, Laughing Stock and Misconduct.Brent Lewin / BloombergKelly McParland: Hydro One selloff is Liberals’ way of testing whether Ontarians will believe anythinghttp://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/kelly-mcparland-hydro-one-selloff-is-liberals-way-of-testing-the-market-for-suckers
http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/kelly-mcparland-hydro-one-selloff-is-liberals-way-of-testing-the-market-for-suckers#commentsWed, 11 Mar 2015 15:09:00 +0000http://news.nationalpost.com/?p=716969

Stuck with a $12.5 billion deficit and no coherent plan to eliminate it, Ontario’s Premier Kathleen Wynne has seized on a potential means of raising short-term spending money: sell off a piece of Hydro One.

News leaked Tuesday that Ms. Wynne’s government is contemplating a partial sell-off of the provincial power distributor – maybe 10% to 15%, possibly followed by further share sales if the first one goes well. The Globe and Mail characterized the sale as “massive”, although at an estimated $1 billion it wouldn’t even cover the cost of the two gas-fired power plants the Liberals mothballed in the midst of the 2011 election. Reports also suggested eager investors would be climbing over one another for a piece of the action: with interest rates at rock bottom levels, who wouldn’t want a share of a giant electricity utility?

Well, uh, lots of people, I suspect. Especially people who appreciate how badly run Hydro One has been, and who would hesitate to trust their money to a giant monolithic bureaucracy that would continue to be run by the same people who turned Ontario’s power system into such a mess in the first place.

Peter J. Thompson/National PostDalton McGuinty: he was against a sell-off before he was in favour of it.

That’s the kicker in the rumoured sell-off: Ms. Wynne wants to sell off bits of the utility while retaining complete control. I’d like the same deal: I’ll sell you my house if I get to keep living in it and retain control. You take the mortgage, I’ll keep the house. Deal?

If you don’t believe me, how about Dalton McGuinty, Ms. Wynne’s predecessor. Reacting to suggestions the Progressive Conservative government was mulling a sell-off in 2002, he denounced the very idea:.

“Ernie Eves may be poised to sell off Hydro One in a desperate bid to get cash so he can throw money at the electricity crisis he has created,” said McGuinty, who was opposition leader at the time. Selling pieces of Ontario’s electricity grid would only result in further “price gouging,” he insisted.

Mr. McGuinty, who was never one to let principles get in his way, later reversed himself and considered a sell-off of his own once he became premier. In 2009 the Liberals – faced with that huge deficit they’d amassed — considered a plan for a wholesale unloading of government assets, including Ontario Power Generation (which generates the power Hydro One distributes), the LCBO, and the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation.

That’s what makes Hydro One such a questionable bauble. A sell-off has been often contemplated, but never followed up. Former premier Mike Harris first raised the possibility in the 1990s, and orchestrated the break-up of the former Ontario Hydro into smaller chunks to make it more palatable. After Mr. Harris retired, Mr. Eves initially sought to carry out the sale, but backed down when circumstances turned against him: prices started going up instead of down, Ontario suffered brown-outs and the biggest blackout in U.S. history cut power across Ontario as well. Mr. McGuinty sniffed around a sell-off but backed away (though he did oversee a reduction in OPG’s share of production) and former Tory leader Tim Hudak proposed selling parts of Hydro One and OPG, for which he was ridiculed in the Liberal-friendly Toronto Star, which mocked his “scheme to revive the party’s doomed privatization of electricity utilities a decade ago.”

Adrian Wyld/ Adrian WyldErnie Eves: cancelled earlier privatization

But now it’s a Liberal plan again. And that, perhaps unfortunately for Ms. Wynne, is a problem. Though political meddling in the power industry has been a problem for Ontario consumers for 20 years or more, it has become particularly acute under the McGuinty/Wynne governments, as rates have soared and billions poured into a misguided effort to create an alternative-energy industry. Ontario produces more power than it needs, pays bloated subsidies to green-energy producers and sells the excess at a loss. In 2013 the auditor general produced a scathing report on out-of-control salaries and benefits at OPG, followed by another in 2014 condemning the $2 billion smart-meter project as largely ineffective. (In reponse, Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli hinted Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk wasn’t bright enough to understand the electricity business).

This is the mighty industry Ms. Wynne hopes to float for a quick return of $1 billion. It’s true that reliable infrastructure investments are popular among institutional investors and pension funds. Just this week the Canada Pension Plan paid $2.1 billion for 40 student residences at British universities. But the attraction in most cases is the guarantee of a reliable flow of revenue. Hydro One could arguably produce that, but via rates so high the Liberals introduced a 10% rebate for consumers (which the province’s environmental commissioner dismissed as a perverse incentive that endangered conservation).

For most investors, privatization works as long as the opportunity exists to make a profit by eliminating the usual inefficiencies and money-wasting practices of government. Ms. Wynne wants their money, but also wants to retain the inefficiencies and money-wasting powers. While bankers may be keen on the deal, it’s only because they can charge the government millions to prepare the sell-off.

And all for $1 billion, or less than one shuttered gas plant. Ms. Wynne must figure if Ontarians were willing to give her a majority government, they must be willing to believe anything.

“Most people in Ontario would be shocked to know that there are psychiatrists who are trying to turn queer kids straight and that taxpayers are paying for it,” Ms DiNovo said in an interview. “This is who these children are if they are trans, or gay, or lesbian and forcing them to go to someone who thinks that that’s a disease is tantamount to abuse.”

Ms DiNovo’s bill would require the support of the ruling Liberal party to become law. Ontario’s premier Kathleen Wynne and her cabinet colleagues have yet to indicate whether they will support it.

DiNovo acknowledged that bills from third place parties rarely make it to a second reading, let alone become law. But she is optimistic. “I have probably passed more private members’ bills than anyone else in government”, she said.

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The Affirming Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Act would make it an offence for any health care professional to “direct the sexual orientation or gender identity of a patient under 18 years of age, including efforts to change or direct behaviours or gender expressions.”

Take the case of a teenage girl who discloses to her psychiatrist that she is a lesbian. If the therapist encourages her to become straight, they would be in violation of the law and could be investigated for professional misconduct. The same would be true of a therapist who was trying to make a male-assigned child wear pants when the child preferred to wear dresses.

They say that there isn’t enough evidence to demonstrate harm from therapies that try to get children to identify with the sex they were assigned at birth. Children and youth who can be made more comfortable with their birth sex will lead happier lives, the critics charge, even if that means pushing them to change their gender expression and conform to traditional gender roles.

Detractors also say that Ms DiNovo’s bill is too strict on health care professionals. Professional misconduct is a serious allegation. Abusing patients, selling drugs unlawfully and violating patient confidentiality are all currently listed under professional misconduct in Ontario’s Medicine Act, 1991. Some say that controversial therapies don’t belong on the list.

Erika Muse, a 26-year-old trans woman from Hamilton, believes that the legislation is urgently needed. When she came out as trans at 16 she started seeing a psychiatrist to get approval for hormone replacement therapy. Rather than giving Muse the go ahead to start physically transitioning, however, the psychiatrist tried to push her to re-think her trans identity and live life as a man.

Muse describes the experience as “horrible, completely negative, certainly not therapeutic… and probably abusive.” “I had nowhere else to go. I had no idea who else I could talk to about these sort of things,” she says. It took 7 years for the psychiatrist to finally approve Muse to start hormones.

While trans people in Ontario will still require a psychiatrist’s OK before they can begin hormone replacement therapy, DiNovo’s bill would make it illegal for therapists like Muse’s to push them away from being trans (or lesbian, gay or bisexual, for that matter).

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/canadian-politics/ontario-ndper-wants-to-block-taxpayer-funding-for-therapies-trying-to-turn-queer-kids-straight/feed/5stdEatonCentre11.jpgBarbara Kay: Only women get help for spousal violence, while men are ignoredhttp://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/barbara-kay-only-women-get-help-for-spousal-violence-while-men-are-ignored
http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/barbara-kay-only-women-get-help-for-spousal-violence-while-men-are-ignored#commentsTue, 10 Mar 2015 15:56:41 +0000http://news.nationalpost.com/?p=716155

A condition called hemispacial neglect, also known as hemiagnosia, is a rare phenomenon in the neurological world, characterized by the inability of those afflicted to process and perceive stimuli on one side of their environment. The most striking feature of the condition is that the victim not only fails to see what is in (usually) her left field of vision, but is also unaware of the fact that the other side of his environment even exists.

There is a cultural correlative to this condition that is remarkably common, affecting almost all academics in our university humanities and social science departments, most politicians and most media commentators. Cultural hemiagnosia presents as a failure to see, or even be aware of, the fact that half the population – the male half – are ever victims of violence by women.

Intimate partner violence is not sexual assault in most cases. The two phenomena should be kept separate.

The result is that a great deal of social, educational and legislative concern focuses on female victims of domestic violence, with lavish sums of money devoted to counseling, shelters and public service campaigns aimed at sensitizing the public to this shameful social scourge, but virtually zero funds are spent on the same services for male sufferers of the same scourge – without guilt, since male suffering is both visually and cognitively invisible to the hemiagnosiacs creating the policies.

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne has released a three-year, $41-million plan to combat sexual violence. Violence against women, that is, since she too is a cultural hemiagnosiac. The Canadian Association for Equality (CAFÉ) has mounted a counter-campaign, accusing Ms Wynne of forgetting “half the victims of violence.” They have mounted a provocative billboard ad in which a man is seen cowering before the figure of an angry woman, with the hashtag #Let’stalkmen. A CAFÉ press release includes the statement: “Premier Kathleen Wynne’s violence against women initiative reinforces gender stereotypes that ignore violence against men, gays and lesbians, and endanger children with abusive mothers.”

Penny Krowitz, executive director of Act to End Violence Against Women countered CAFÉ’s citation of Statistics Canada’s findings that almost as many men as women experience spousal violence (601,000 women to 585,000 men) with the argument that women are twice as likely to be physically injured during abuse and far more likely to fear for their lives.

Krowitz is correct that the most extreme form of spousal violence is male-on-female, but hard-core batterers and outright killers are rare (about 45 women are killed by male intimate partners in Canada annually, and about 25 men are killed by female partners, although the latter figure does not include proxy killings by boyfriends or others). In violence of the mild to moderately severe variety that constitutes most domestic violence – shoving, slapping, hitting, punching, throwing objects, even stabbing and burning – both sexes initiate and cause harm in equal measure. That includes gays and lesbians, where rates are higher than the general population.

Every major survey has borne out this truth. In fact, the most reliable, like Canada’s 1999 General Social Survey, found not only that most male and female violence is reciprocal, but also that the younger the sample, the more violent the women relative to men. A meta-analysis of more than 80 large-scale surveys notes a widening, concerning spread – less male and more female violence – in the dating cohort.

In 2011, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) published its National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey to great fanfare. The survey’s central finding was that men and women inflict and suffer equal rates of domestic violence, with 6.5% of men and 6.3% of women experiencing partner aggression in the past year. More men (18%) suffer psychological aggression (humiliation, threats of violence, controllingness) than women (14%). Feminists often define IPV as a “pattern of power and control,” but the survey finds that men were 50% more likely to have experienced coercive control than women (15.2% vs 10.7%).

Krowitz alluded to data from the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics finding that most police-reported spousal and family violence was against women. Excuse me, but duhh. Key words here: “police-reported.” The common policy in law enforcement is to arrest the male in virtually all reported incidents of partner violence, no matter who initiated it. I know of cases where police arrive to find the man dripping with blood from a wound sustained by a sharp object, only to be arrested because it is as a matter of policy to be assumed he had provoked his partner into defending herself. So of course males were arrested “in nearly 80% of cases of intimate partner violence reported to police in 2013.” Arrest stats are an unreliable guide to what is actually happening between the sexes in terms of violence.

Yes, sexual assault is a crime mainly perpetrated by men against women. But intimate partner violence is not sexual assault in most cases. The two phenomena should be kept separate. And intimate partner violence – a phenomenon almost equally perpetrated by both sexes – should be accorded the same public services. Penny Krowitz justifies the lack of services by the fact that not many men come forward to ask for them.

It is true that men are ashamed to admit they are victims of a woman’s violence, just as women are often ashamed to say they have been raped. Feminists say there are 100 unreported rapes for every reported one. The situation for male victims of partner violence is analogous. Build the services for male victims of partner violence, just as services are being built for women victims of rape, and male victims will begin to come forward. Neurological hemiagnosia cannot be cured. Cultural hemiagnosia can be. The antidote is simple: respect the evidence and act on it.

TORONTO — Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne stressed Tuesday that her government has yet to make a decision on how best to sell off provincial assets, responding to a report that she is planning to sell shares in Hydro One.

“This is information that has gotten into the public realm prematurely,” she said at a news conference.

On Tuesday, the Globe and Mail reported that a proposal is in the works that would float 10% to 15% of Hydro One in an initial public offering, and possibly follow with additional stock sales that would further reduce its stake. The report cited unnamed government and industry sources.

“Kathleen Wynne wants to hold a fire sale of Hydro One,” Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath said in statement Tuesday, “but Ontario’s public institutions are not hers to sell off.”

The report also drew the ire of the Ontario Progressive Conservatives, with PC energy critic Vic Fedeli accusing the Liberal government of “burning the furniture to heat the house.”

Ms. Wynne last year asked a panel led by former Toronto-Dominion Bank chief executive Ed Clark to make recommendations on whether or how to sell assets like Hydro One as well as the province’s corporation for electricity generation, Ontario Power Generation, and the LCBO, Ontario’s liquor sales monopoly.

Ms. Wynne said Tuesday that she was still waiting on final recommendations from Clark, but said any revenue generated by asset sales would go toward transit infrastructure projects.

“You talk about something like the 407, that’s exactly what we’re not going to do,” the premier said. “We’re not going to divest an asset that was of huge value and then not make it work for the province.”

“Let me just say that we have not made a final decisions on this,” she said. “I have conversations that I have to have with Ed Clark, with my cabinet, with my caucus.”

In October, Clark’s advisory council recommended the province keep all three assets in public hands but noted that selling off the distribution business owned by Hydro One could generate $2-$3-billion for the province’s coffers.

A spokeswoman for Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli also denied a decision had been made on Tuesday, while a Hydro One spokeswoman referred questions back to the Ontario government.

“The media reports this morning are very premature, no decision has been made,” said Chiarelli spokeswoman Jennifer Beaudry.

The IPO would represent a chance to earn tens of millions of dollars in fees for investment bankers, the Globe story noted, as well as helping the province reduce its budget deficit or invest in infrastructure.

Calling the Ontario government’s campaign against sexual violence “sexist,” a men’s issues group unveiled a new billboard in downtown Toronto Monday in an attempt to draw attention to male victims of domestic abuse.

“HALF of domestic violence victims are men,” reads the billboard, paid for by the Canadian Association for Equality (CAFE). “NO domestic violence shelters are dedicated to us.”

The billboard comes after Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne released a three-year, $41-million plan to combat sexual violence last week. The campaign, spurred in part by the high-profile sex assault allegations against Jian Ghomeshi, includes a video ad with staggering scenes of women being sexually assaulted and harassed.

In a news release Monday, CAFE accused Premier Wynne of forgetting “half the victims of violence.”

But declaring that men make up half of domestic violence victims oversimplifies a complex set of statistics, as one women’s advocate noted.

“If service providers were finding that there was such a need for men’s shelters, there would be men’s shelters,” said Penny Krowitz, executive director of Act to End Violence Against Women. “If we had enough men coming forward saying, ‘I need shelter from this abusive woman’ or ‘I need shelter from this situation,’ do you not think that we would have provided those services to men?”

In backing up its claim, CAFE cites a 2009 Statistics Canada survey that found an estimated 601,000 Canadian women and 585,000 men experienced spousal violence.

That study, however, also notes that women are twice as likely to be physically injured during spousal abuse than men; and almost seven times as likely to fear for their lives.

The latest data from the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics found that the majority of police-reported spousal and family violence was against women. Women were the victims of nearly 80% of cases of intimate partner violence reported to police in 2013, the study found. And women between 20 and 24 were six times more likely to be victims of intimate partner violence than men the same age.

But those figures are based on police reports, CAFE spokesman Justin Trottier said, noting the Centre for Justice Statistics report itself finds female victims are “three times more likely than males to state that they had reported the incident to police.”

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“In other words, there is an important scholarly debate about the rates of victimization, severity and reporting,” Mr. Trottier said in an email, “but the idea that male victimization is non-existent and can be safely ignored, is to neglect to support a huge group of people in need.”

Ontario Minister for Women’s Issues Tracy MacCharles’ responded to the billboard in a statement Monday, listing a number of sexual assault statistics (because the government’s campaign specifically concerns sexual violence).

“Sexual assault is a crime most often perpetrated by men against women,” the emailed statement read.

“That being said, we also know that men experience sexual violence and have unique needs for support,” the minister said, adding that the government funds the Support Services for Male Survivors of Sexual Abuse program.

Mr. Trottier said CAFE didn’t take out the billboard to specifically respond to the new Ontario campaign.

“This is something that we’ve been working on for about two and a half months now,” he said. “It simply is trying to make room for a group that routinely gets marginalized.”

A CAFE fundraising campaign to either extend the Toronto billboard’s current month-long lease or post the ad on other billboards across the country had reached $2,000 by Monday afternoon, according to the organization’s website.

A half-limp young woman struggles against a man peeling off her jean jacket, one hand held above her face, a bright light from a smartphone flash piercing her eyes.

A house party swirls as she struggles to lift her head. Her attacker stares at the camera and says, “Thanks for keeping your mouth shut.”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2ZSZrGc-O8&w=640&h=390]

It’s a startling scene to watch, but also one that has played out in real life for far too many young women. The gritty spot, soon to be in movie theatres and on TV after 9 p.m., anchors the Ontario’s government’s new $41-million strategy to combat sexual violence and harassment.

The grand design was drafted in response to recent high-profile incidents that remain before the courts, including sexual assault allegations against members of the University of Ottawa hockey team, Jian Ghomeshi and Bill Cosby.

“Over the years, every time one of these stories breaks, we’ve once again started the conversation… and then very little or nothing changes. Well, time’s up,” Premier Kathleen Wynne said upon releasing the strategy, titled “It’s Never Ok.”

AP Photo/Andy Wong // THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-CBCOntario Premier Kathleen Wynne has unveiled a new sexual assault and harassment strategy for the province, a move partly inspired by the stunning allegations against Jian Ghomeshi.

The complex plan stretches from university campuses to office towers, from the civil courts to hospital rooms. The money will boost sexual assault support services, fund public-awareness campaigns like the stunning ad, and kick-off a pilot project to offer victims of sexual violence free legal advice.

“Sexual violence is rooted in misogyny, which is deeply ingrained in our culture,” said Wynne said.

The plan begins in childhood, with the province’s new sex ed curriculum and lessons on healthy relationships. It continues to post-secondary campuses, which now must develop better strategies to combat such incidents, and through to the workplace.

It includes materials in 25 languages, male survivors, indigenous communities, and the LGBT community.

Wynne pledged legislation this fall after further consultation. It will amend existing workplace-harassment law, remove statutory limits for civil sexual assault cases and change tenancy law to allow victims of domestic violence or sexual assault to break leases with less than 60 days notice.

YouTubeA screengrab of a new anti-sexual assault and harassment ad from the Ontario government.

But tweaking the law and giving police and other first responders better training to deal with sexual assault are a small piece of a massive jigsaw; the tough part is tackling “rape culture,” Wynne said.

That term alone will upset some, and sources familiar with the policy development say there was internal discussion about how or wheter to include it at all. But instead of ditching the increasingly common phrase, they opted to define it as “a culture in which dominant ideas, social practices, media images and societal institutions implicitly or explicitly condone sexual assault by normalizing or trivializing male sexual violence and by blaming survivors for their own abuse.”

That’s why the ad campaign is “key,” Wynne said. The minute-long spot continues with a man rubbing an uncomfortable colleague’s shoulders, a teen showing off photos of a girlfriend, and a man slipping something into a woman’s drink.

“When you do nothing. you’re helping him, but when you do something, you’re helping her,” the ad states, then showing positive outcomes following bystander intervention.

The fact Wynne has chosen to champion this issue, and invest $41 million, speaks to her priorities. In the scope of a $130-billion budget, it’s pocket change, but not when combatting a $12.5-billion deficit.

This is the latest example of feminist leadership from Premier Wynne

“This is the latest example of feminist leadership from Premier Wynne and establishes Ontario as a leader in Canada in confronting these complex issues through public policy,” said Vasiliki Bednar, associate director of Cities at the Martin Prosperity Institute and an Action Fellow who holds a master’s in public policy from the University of Toronto. (Full disclosure: Bednar is a former senior policy adviser to Education Minister Liz Sandals).

The new sex ed curriculum, a wage increase for personal support workers and early childhood educators, and her calls for an inquiry into missing Aboriginal women are just a few other examples of Wynne bringing a feminist lens to public policy.

Both opposition parties at Queen’s Park lauded the strategy’s lofty rhetoric and goals. But New Democrat women’s issues critic Peggy Sattler pointed out the Liberals failed to follow through on a similar, albeit far less ambitious, 2011 strategy, which was criticized by the auditor general in 2013 for lacking the specific timelines and goals the 2015 version includes.

She said, “We want to see integrated solutions and real progress, not just talk.”

Here’s how the government says it plans to spend that $41 million across multiple ministries:

$3.75 million over three years to support community based sexual assault centres throughout Ontario, and another $3 million over three years to enhance services offered by hospital-based sexual assault/domestic violence treatment centres.

$3.3 million over three years for the legal aid pilot program, to offer free legal advice to sexual assault survivors whose cases are proceeding towards a criminal trial.

$5.8 million for workplace inspectors to support the amendments of the Occupational Health and Safety act, to protect people across Ontario from sexual harassment in the workplace.

$750,000 over 2 years to provide outreach to newcomers and training for the service providers who support them.

$2.25 million towards the creative engagement fund for artists to develop projects that provoke conversation and dialogue on issues of consent, rape culture and gender inequality.

OTTAWA — Kathleen Wynne says she’s determined to use her influence as Ontario’s first female premier to improve the lot of all women — starting with an action plan on sexual violence and harrassment to be unveiled today.

The premier says the plan will include a variety of initiatives, including a public education campaign aimed at raising awareness of the problem and challenging societal norms and beliefs.

She says victims must be better supported, ensuring that women who are “brave enough” to come forward with complaints aren’t re-victimized.

If we don’t talk about it… then we are doing nothing to stop it from happening again and again and again

As well, Wynne says laws need to be strengthened to keep workplaces and post-secondary campuses free from sexual violence and harrassment.

Above all, she says the plan aims to change deep-rooted attitudes and behaviours that contribute to violence against women.

Wynne gave a preview of the action plan, which is meant to coincide with International Women’s Day on March 8, during a symposium Thursday on women in politics at the University of Ottawa — an institution that has suffered its own recent scandals involving sexual misconduct.

The university suspended the men’s hockey team last year following allegations that two players sexually assaulted a woman while the team was visiting Thunder Bay. The suspension followed the resignation of four student government officials over inappropriate sexual comments about a female colleague on Facebook.

“I am determined to use my influence to make change,” Wynne told the symposium. “The need for action and influence, I think, is particularly acute when it comes to issues surrounding sexual assault and violence against women.”

Research suggests one in three Canadian women will face some kind of sexual violence or harrassment in their life, yet most don’t report it, she said.

“There is a real danger in silence. If we don’t talk about it or we pretend that it’s not pervasive or that it’s not happening, then we are doing nothing to stop it from happening again and again and again.”

Barriers because I’m a woman. Barriers because I’m a lesbian….Barriers because I’m just a mom

While she described her life as privileged, Wynne frankly talked about how her own path “has been cluttered with barriers.”

“Barriers because I’m a woman. Barriers because I’m a lesbian. And as one of my neighbours who was surprised at the fact that I became premier once said to me, barriers because I’m just a mom. He said, ‘It’s amazing you’re there. You’re just a mom.”‘

Yet, nothing prepared her better for becoming premier than being a mother, Wynne said — teaching her empathy, the need for supportive environments for youth and how to “juggle 20 priorities at once.”

Measuring the success of women by their increased numbers in government and corporate boardrooms does a disservice to women, she argued.

“The women of influence are not just the women you see on the stages of societies. The women of influence are the mothers and the sisters and the grandmothers who are working in every single family in this country, in this world, to raise a generation, to teach their children, to look after and hold their families together and literally to hold communities together.”

Premier Kathleen Wynne “crossed the line” by saying she doesn’t expect police to lay charges after they investigate the Liberals’ actions in a Sudbury byelection, the opposition parties said Friday.

Ms. Wynne refuses to ask her deputy chief of staff, Pat Sorbara, to step down while the OPP investigate allegations of bribery and corruption after a Liberal candidate said he was offered a job or appointment to step aside.

“If charges were laid, then Pat Sorbara would of course step aside,” the premier told the legislature Thursday. “On our review, we don’t think that’s going to happen, but that will be up to others to decide.”

Progressive Conservative House leader Steve Clark said Ms. Wynne “crossed the line” with her comments.
“I think the premier needs to let the investigators do their work,” said Mr. Clark. “She needs to stop interfering, stop making editorial comments, and let the investigations go through their due course.”

NDP House leader Gilles Bisson said the premier has a duty to make sure she doesn’t interfere with police, even indirectly.

“There’s a difference when you’re the premier to an average citizen and you do have a larger responsibility to make sure you’re careful in the use of your words so you don’t interfere in any kind of way,” said Mr. Bisson.

“Maybe she hopes the police will hear her and at the end of the day nothing happens, and if that’s the case that’s pure interference.”

Maybe she hopes the police will hear her and at the end of the day nothing happens, and if that’s the case that’s pure interference

Ms. Wynne’s office responded to the accusations Friday by saying the Tories and NDP should let the police do their job.

The premier’s statement is not a direction being issued to police on the byelection probe, said Lawrence Gridin, a lawyer with Brauti Thorning Zibarras LLP in Toronto.

“All she’s saying is that she thinks Pat is innocent. I think she’s entitled to say that.”

Former Liberal candidate Andrew Olivier released recordings of conversations with Ms. Sorbara and Sudbury Liberal Gerry Lougheed to support his claim that he was offered a job or appointment to step aside in the byelection.

Ms. Wynne maintains the Liberals were simply trying to keep a former candidate active in the party, and that no specific offers were made to Mr. Olivier, who came second in last June’s general election to New Democrat Joe Cimino.

The OPP are investigating whether the alleged offer to Mr. Olivier contravened the corruption section of the Criminal Code and also whether the bribery section of the province’s Election Act was violated.

Elections Ontario concluded that Ms. Sorbara and Mr. Lougheed’s actions constituted an “apparent contravention” of the act, but it has no mandate to conduct prosecutions. The report was turned over to the OPP.

Ms. Wynne appointed former NDP MP Glenn Thibeault as the Liberal candidate in Sudbury, and he won the Feb. 5 byelection.

After blowing two consecutive elections, both eminently winnable, under former leader Tim Hudak, the provincial Tories understandably concluded that were in desperate need of a rebuild. Mr. Hudak lost to former premier Dalton McGuinty in 2011, and to his successor, Premier Kathleen Wynne, in 2014, via a combination of hubris, bad decision-making and pure block-headedness. A leadership convention is scheduled for May, with general agreement that the party needs to reconnect with the grassroots, revamp its policies and find a leader who appeals to more people than he repels.

“For myself, I don’t believe in evolution.”

So far so good. But even as the convention date draws near it is becoming evident there’s more troubling the Tories than structural issues and a need for better ideas. The party itself is becoming an issue. The one-time Big Blue Machine, which found a way to appeal to something in everyone, has become a refuge for cranks and oddballs. If the party was a rider on the TTC at rush hour, no one would want to sit beside it.

Darren Calabrese/Canadian PressChristine Elliott is the only party leadership hopeful who didn't attend the rally against the sex-ed update.

Monte McNaughton, one of three leadership candidates, erupted in precisely the wrong way and at precisely the wrong moment this week. Ms. Wynne’s government had just unveiled its rewrite on the Ontario’s public school curriculum, which included some contentious provisions involving sex education for children.

There was room for intelligent debate about the document. At just what age are children prepared for instruction on anal sex, and who is to decide? Is it appropriate that schools should absorb responsibility for a topic many parents still feel falls in their jurisdiction? Unfortunately, Mr. McNaughton ignored those issues and chose to attack Ms. Wynne.

“It’s not the premier of Ontario’s job, especially Kathleen Wynne, to tell parents what’s age-appropriate for their children,” he charged. The remark was a gift for the Liberals. Ms. Wynne happens to be a lesbian, a fact treated as a complete non-event by Ontario voters. But Mr. McNaughton’s remark smacked of bigotry. Ms. Wynne leapt on the opportunity.

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“What is it that especially disqualifies me for the job that I’m doing?” she demanded. “Is it that I’m a woman? Is it that I’m a mother? Is it that I have a master’s of education? Is it that I was a school council chair? Is it that I was the minister of education? What is it exactly that the member opposition thinks disqualifies me from doing the job that I’m doing? What is that?”

She didn’t even have to say “homophobic,” we all knew what she was getting at. Mr. McNaughton was left to bluster helplessly about the unfairness of the premier suggesting any such thing. Then, before the premier could even celebrate the easy victory she’d been handed, the Tories tossed her another one. While following up McNaugton’s attack on the new curriculum, fellow Conservative Rick Nicholls suggested it wouldn’t be a bad idea to quit teaching children about evolution as well.

Great. Just what the party needed. McNaughton is from a rural riding in southwest Ontario. Nicholls represents another farm community right next door. One of the party’s biggest challenges is expanding its much-shrivelled base into urban areas, where it is all but nonexistent. It doesn’t take a strategic genius to know they’re not going to do it with a party of gay-baiting creationists.

Mr. McNaughton has little chance of winning the leadership. Nor does Patrick Brown, a Barrie MP whose campaign is co-chaired by Mr. Nicholls. The odds heavily favour Christine Elliott, who has the overwhelming support of caucus members and the party establishment. Ms. Elliott came within moments of slipping into the same muck as Nicholls and McNaughton by appearing at a rally against the new curriculum, only discovering other obligations at the last moment. It shouldn’t have taken nearly that long.

In the old days before Stephen Harper, the federal Conservatives had a similar history of Bozo eruptions. All the Liberals had to do was wait long enough, and some fringe Tory was sure to say something clueless that could be used to stereotype the whole party. Alberta’s Wildrose Party struggled with the same problem. Under former leader Danielle Smith it appeared to have the government on the run until Wildrose candidates began sharing their thoughts about race, religion and the “Caucasian advantage.” When she decamped from the party with eight other colleagues recently, Ms. Smith suggested such thinking was not unconnected to her decision.

Ms. Elliott, should she emerge as the new PC leader, will need to quickly address this issue. The Ontario party needs a rigorous debate over its future and its character. If it hopes to form a government in the foreseeable future, it needs to rid itself of the cranks and dinosaurs. Ms. Elliott needs to clean house, bringing in friendlier faces, better judgment and less-peripheral views. It shouldn’t be that hard. Ontario is a moderate place. The Tories have just been fishing in the wrong pool.

In the Canadian conservative movement there’s a pro league, a Junior A contingent, and a small-market bush league where bullet-headed scrappers tough it out in the corners for a few years, busting teeth and noses — most often their own — before soon moving on to that career in real estate. And can you guess where the Ontario Progressive Conservative party has just now placed itself in the pantheon?

What Southwestern Ontario MPPs Monte McNaughton and Rick Nicholls have done, with their otiose, idiotic declarations about sex education and evolution, is set aside every hard lesson learned by Conservatives — in Ontario, in Alberta, and federally — in the past 15 years. We’re back to Tennessee, circa 1925. It is a tour de force of self-immolation not seen since, well, the last three Ontario provincial elections.

The federal Conservatives are no strangers to the see-saw of social conservatism (read Christian religious conservatism, mainly) versus libertarianism. Indeed they understand it viscerally. Stephen Harper’s long political journey, from Alberta Reform Party theorist to sixth-longest-serving Canadian prime minister, would not have happened otherwise. He could not have swept and kept Ontario, with its Bill Davis, Red Tory sensibility, without first turning his back on the evangelicals in his base.

Ah, but there remain many hard-core Christian evangelicals in the Tory base, no? Social conservatism — as articulated through opposition to abortion, hostility toward bureaucrats and pointy-headed intellectuals, and a desire for harsher criminal justice — has no Canadian federal political home beyond the Conservative party. Where else can so-cons go? True.

But this is quite different from saying that Mr. Harper has run a socially conservative government. He hasn’t. Apart from the odd aberration, such as a prostitution law that will not withstand Supreme Court scrutiny, this PM has long been a libertarian, relatively speaking. The best evidence was his iron-fisted clampdown on B.C. Conservative MP Mark Warawa’s 2013 effort to ignite a national debate about sex-selective abortion.

Apart from the odd aberration, such as a prostitution law that will not withstand Supreme Court scrutiny, this PM has long been a libertarian, relatively speaking

Mr. Harper’s personal views about that topic are not known. What we do know is that the Tories carry out extensive polling, and are aware that Canadians overwhelmingly do not want a return to the abortion debates of the 1980s. It is also obvious to them, as it is to others, that the old charge they had a fundamentalist Christian hidden agenda was the reason it took them so long — Reform’s first foray into Ontario was in 1991 — to break through in Canada’s most populous province.

The successful formula, as demonstrated by Mr. Harper from 2004 through 2011, is not rocket science: Keep the gub’mint out of people’s private lives, as long as they’re not breaking any laws or harming anyone, and place your policy focus in areas where a clear majority of Canadians can agree — such as freer trade, efficiency in managing the public purse, lower taxes and basic security. No doubt some Conservative MPs are unhappy at the prospect of drafting a new law that allows assisted death, as mandated by the Supreme Court. But will the Tories invoke the notwithstanding clause? No. It’s a fight they can’t win.

Jean Levac/ Ottawa CitizenOntario MPP Monte McNaughton.

Which brings us back to Messrs. McNaughton and Nicholls. Mr. McNaughton, currently seeking to replace Tim Hudak as the party leader most likely to lead his colleagues to oblivion, is strenuously objecting to the Kathleen Wynne government’s revised sex education curriculum. He doesn’t think these Liberals, “especially Kathleen Wynne,” have any business educating children about sexuality.

Subtext? Ms. Wynne is a lesbian and the new curriculum, shockingly, acknowledges the existence of homosexuality, as well as the Internet. Conspiracy! It’s like a 1980s movie about moralistic detritus held over from the 1920s; Kevin Bacon in Footloose, perhaps, in which the town fathers are horrified at the prospect of dancing. The revised curriculum is common sensical and amusingly humdrum, when set against the apocalyptic advance billing: “It’s best to wait until you are older to have sex because you need to be emotionally ready,” reads one typical paragraph about abstinence and sexual health.

With Mr. McNaughton already stuck axel-deep in the muck, Mr. Nicholls then went one better with his assertion of non-belief in evolution. Since this ground was well covered in Dayton, Tennessee, in the summer of 1925 in the landmark Scopes-Darrow evolution trial — the history of which is still taught, I think, in Ontario schools — there’s no call to go over that again here. Suffice to say that Mr. Nicholls may as well have tattooed “we are cretins” over his party’s next ad. His embarrassed colleagues rushed to assert that they do, in fact, believe in evolution. Just to be on the safe side they may also be wise add they do not believe Elvis Presley is alive and walks among us in the guise of an old beggar. Someone should ask.

The obvious question: This is Ontario Conservatism, now? Stephen Harper, say what you might about his motivation and methods, has modeled a way to channel Ontario’s conservative inclinations — which are, in fact, progressive. It’s bizarre that his cousins at Queen’s Park appear to have learned so very little from the effort.

I haven’t seen Lawrence Hiller in the best part of 40 years, but we’re Facebook friends. How times change. He was the boy at my school who asked me one day if I knew where babies came from. I replied that I wasn’t exactly sure but I thought it might have something to do with the bum area. “Yeah,” he said, “I used to think that. But it’s not.” He proceeded to open my eyes to a brave and rather bewildering new world. As I say, how times change.

Still, the knowledge of how it all works seemed to be passed on to me fairly successfully, and my wife and I have raised four children who also seem to be well informed about the birds and the bees. Only one of them is young enough to be exposed to the new Ontario sex education curriculum, although she would never read the thing I felt obliged to plough through, as it is mostly a clumsily didactic and dust-dry document. It’s pregnant — forgive the term — with instructions about the coddling of kids and has an obsession with physical and emotional safety, but the gender fluidity and oral and anal sex that its detractors have spoken of is hardly mentioned at all.

It’s almost 250 pages long and you have to read through forests of advice about not smoking, not doing drugs, eating vegetables and keeping fit before getting to the good bits. What is does do, however, is acknowledge that some children feel as if their physical bodies do not represent their psychological and sexual feelings and acknowledges that, whether parents approve or not, anal and oral sex take place. It’s more discussion and explanation than recommendation and indoctrination. In fact most of the curriculum is more banality than Bolshevism and while some of it is surprising to adult eyes, it’s not especially radical or misplaced.

The other point, and it’s a vital one, is that the teachers who will have to deliver the thing to their classes spend much of their time with their students and the notion that they would be willing to harm or pervert them is as insulting as it is absurd. Most teachers wish that parents were more, not less, involved.

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The reaction, however, has bordered on the hysterical, often from people who have not read the document and, truth be told, are opposed to pretty much any sex education outside of the family. The allegation, for example, that disgraced educational adviser and former senior public servant Benjamin Levin was behind the curriculum is pernicious and irresponsible. The man is soon to plead guilty to various child pornography charges and the implication made by many critics is that it’s all about prematurely sexualizing and grooming of children. Not so.

Then there is fact that Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne is gay and as much as it might be denied, I can assure you that some of the leading and loudest opponents of the curriculum have never been comfortable with her being a lesbian. They frequently complain that the new teaching exposes children to homosexuality when it merely states the self-evident: that same-sex marriage is the law of the land and many children have gay parents, family members and friends or are themselves gay. I have never understood why so many social conservatives are so insecure about other people’s sexuality; it’s hard enough to make children do their math homework, let alone work at changing their sexual orientation after school!

We tend, understandably, to see our children through the prism of our own childhood and experiences, and worry about an evolving moral context and set of social boundaries. It’s helpful to remember that when very large families lived in very small homes they knew at an extremely young age about all sorts of things that the comfortable, cuddled generation of the 1960s and ’70s would find shocking. Children are sexual, do need to learn, do need autonomy over their bodies and do deserve respect. And to be candid, some of the most damaged children I have ever met have been those most sheltered from the world by their well-meaning but terribly frightened parents.

A final note, if I may, as an orthodox and Catholic Christian. If conservative Christians became as angry and active about poverty, injustice, unjust war and other such issues as they do about sex and sexuality, not only would the world be a better place, but the standing of conservative Christians would be far higher. Now I am off to see if Lawrence Hiller is still around and if he can tell me how to block nasty emails. How times change.

Premier Kathleen Wynne says she has no doubt homophobia motivated some of the hundreds of people who protested Ontario’s new sex education curriculum this week.

Wynne, who is gay, says she looked at the protest on the front lawn of Queen’s Park and social media comments on the revised curriculum and concluded some of the opposition is homophobic.

Many of those at Tuesday’s protest said the government was introducing ideas like same sex relationships and masturbation too early for some kids, but others brandished signs with more extreme messages.

Wynne told The Canadian Press that there’s no doubt in her mind that homophobia “is part of the motivating drive behind some of the protests.”

Wynne says people will have to draw their own conclusions about why Progressive Conservative leadership candidate Monte McNaughton says she is not qualified to propose a new sex-ed curriculum.

McNaughton was fuming after Wynne suggested his questions were homophobic, calling it “the lowest thing a premier could say about another legislator.”

He says the only point he’s raised is that the Liberals failed to consult enough parents before introducing the revised sex-ed curriculum, which the government says will be implemented this fall without any changes.

“It’s not the premier of Ontario’s job, especially Kathleen Wynne, to tell parents what’s age-appropriate for their children,” McNaughton had said after the changes were announced.

Wynne also admits she was surprised when Conservative MPP Rick Nicholls responded to a “joke” by Education Minister Liz Sandals by saying it wasn’t a bad idea to stop teaching evolution in schools.

Nicholls admitted Wednesday that he doesn’t believe in evolution, something Wynne said took her by surprise because she thought every member of the legislature believed in the science that was being taught in Ontario schools.

About 200 people gathered outside the Ontario legislature today to protest the revised sex-education curriculum, while inside Premier Kathleen Wynne was going on the attack against an Opposition critic.

Progressive Conservative Monte McNaughton is openly critical of the updated curriculum and says it’s not the job of the premier — “especially Kathleen Wynne” — to tell parents what is age appropriate for their children.

Wynne, who is openly gay, responded by pointedly demanding that McNaughton explain why he feels she is not qualified to set standards for kids in schools.

What is it that especially disqualifies me for the job that I’m doing? Is it that I’m a woman? Is it that I’m a mother? Is it that I have a master’s of education?

Staring down McNaughton, Wynne asked if she’s unqualified because she’s a woman, a mother, a former school trustee, a one time school council chair, a former minister of education or that she has a masters of education. According to the preliminary Hansard transcript of her comments, she said:

“What is it that especially disqualifies me for the job that I’m doing? Is it that I’m a woman? Is it that I’m a mother? Is it that I have a master’s of education? Is it that I was a school council chair? Is it that I was the minister of education? What is it exactly that the member opposition thinks disqualifies me from doing the job that I’m doing? What is that?”

McNaughton was not given an opportunity in the legislature to respond to Wynne’s questions.

McNaughton and fellow PC leadership Patrick Brown then joined the crowd of protesters gathered outside Queen’s Park. After initially indicating she would attend, leadership contender Christine Elliott did not speak at the rally.

On Monday, the Ontario government released the details of its new sex ed curriculum, catapulting the province’s fretful moralists into the soft velour of their fainting chaises. “MpffffSEXphhhKIDS,” they wail into crimson pillows, with the curriculum ripped in tatters and spewed across the bearskin rug. “[Unintelligible] ANAL IN KINDERGARDEN [unintelligible] WHY, KATHLEEN?”

Organizations have mobilized. The Campaign Life Coalition, which previously identified Kathleen Wynne as a “gay-activist” turned Premier — one who wants to get tweens “thinking about anal intercourse” — has launched a rally at Queen’s Park for Tuesday to protest the new curriculum. The Institute for Canadian Values was ahead of the game, releasing a statement last month abhorring Wynne’s supposed plan to “start teaching grade one children how to give sexual consent.” The REAL Women of Canada also got out early with a release, and they were aghast at a program that “conveys the message that promiscuous sex is expected of children.”

What’s next, Ms. Premier? Hmm? Drinking? Instructions on how to roll marijuana cigarettes? Talks about couples pooping on each other during intercourse? Is that want you want to talk about Ms. Wynne? Pooping?

It’s enough to make anyone reach for the smelling salts, but let’s do some filtering, shall we? Yes, the Premier is a lesbian. No, the Premier is not trying to create a province of little minion gays and lesbians. Awareness of a phenomenon does not necessarily endear one to a phenomenon; children will not decide to adopt a “homosexual lifestyle” for the duration of their adult lives because they learned in Grade 3 that some families have two daddies.

Yes, the new curriculum will include references to anal and oral sex. No, that will not happen in Grade One, and no, the Premier is not trying to create a province of little minion gays and lesbians (see above). The curriculum also does not encourage students to engage in anal or oral sex. It merely acknowledges the fact that some kids do, or will, and offers guidelines for teaching them how to do it safely. These lessons will begin in Grade 7, by which time, I guarantee, most kids are at least aware of anal or oral sex. And for the few that aren’t, I reiterate: Just because they hear about it doesn’t mean they’ll want to do it. Most students will giggle, draw a sketch of their teacher holding a balloon condom, and move on.

Ontario has been in desperate need of a new curriculum for more than a decade. Last updated in 1998, the existing program predates Facebook, the iPhone, Tinder, Instagram — basically, all modern forms of communication through which kids sometimes find themselves in trouble. It also predates the HPV vaccination program for Grade 8 girls in Ontario, as well as the ubiquity of relatively new forms of birth control such as the contraceptive ring, which prevents against pregnancy but not sexually transmitted infections.

While an update was clearly needed, there were some people who were going to be opposed to the government’s new curriculum regardless of the specific details unveiled on Monday. Those people usually contend that sex education should be the responsibility of the parents exclusively, and that the school should basically butt out when it comes to sex.

There are two major problems with this position. One: parents, generally speaking, have no idea what their kids are up to. They might skip the anal sex lesson, for example, believing that those sorts of deviant activities are only done by other children. The other issue is one of scope; parents can cover the birds and bees just fine, but do they know — and can they convey — the legal issues that might come into play when kids make and share intimate images? What do they know of child pornography charges? What about consent? Legally speaking, an individual cannot consent to sex if he or she is intoxicated. How many parents know that? And will they tell their kids? After all their kids don’t really drink alcohol, anyway.

The Liberals have said they are not backing down from their curriculum, as they did in 2010. That leaves hesitant parents with two options: they can either shrink into a dystopian reality — plush with velour and sober, abstinent children — where the lesbian premier is trying to encourage their six-year-olds to stick things in each other’s bums, or they can recognize the reality of modern sexual interactions among youth and temper lessons learned at school with conversations in the home. I can already hear the response: “MfffpmmSEXNO.”